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new music: chief

FRIDAY, JUNE 11, 2010|

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New Domino signees Chief are full of love. The band, which hails from LA but formed while attending NYU, is composed of two friends &mdash Evan Koga and Mike Moonves &mdash and two brothers &mdash Danny and Michael Fujikawa. Theirs is a particularly straightforward brand of rock: clear-toned, folk-inflected, and thoroughly informed by a sense of being in a collective. It's moody, full of conflict, but, surprisingly, not urgent. Songs like "Breaking Walls" are songs to walk to, to drive to, to reflect with.

And, like I said, the band is full of love. Each song is full of harmonies sung by all four members and most of their lyrics are about yearning, heartache, and so on. For some, this could be a sticking point. Influenced by guitarist/songwriter Evan Koga's folk background, they hit on a lot of classic folk rock signifiers, some of which are very fashionable (the harmonies!), some of which aren't. This straightforwardness, which they have in spades, is a quality which works just as often as it doesn't.

But Chief seem like chill guys and they're content to sit back and let the music unravel and speak for itself. Make sure to check out their Domino debut, Modern Rituals, when it drops in August. -ben krusling